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Thursday, June 10, 2010

No more healers needed in the future of WoW?

There are four talent trees out there that have been previewed by Blizzard. You can check them out here.

So far, three healing classes, and the rogue. And all healing classes seem to be going in the same direction. Do damage so you can heal more.So am I the only one who feels that if we'll need this little healing in Cataclysm that healers can spend time, cooldown, gearstats (you'll need hit) on dps, that we might just bring in more proper dps and get stuff dead before you get to ever needing healing?

And if this trend develops a bit more will we see a game without healers? In which the only enrage timer you have is your own health and how well you manage to avoid damage?

Or maybe we can just bring 2 healers to a 25man. Have them watch the fight, conserving mana and staying out of trouble, until healing is really needed, release their biggest spells, and sit there regaining mana again?

Either prospect isn't very charming to me...oh well, more of the "I guess we'll see where it's going" right?

10 comments:

But I don't want to do damage :( I like healing. I stopped playing my rogue because I loved healing so much. I have 2 healing specs (Disc and Holy) because I want to heal. Dibs on being on of the the healers brought to a raid.

I hadn't really looked at the other healing specs (I paid most of my attention to Disc priests), but you're right, there is a lot of "damage to do more healing" in the talents. I suspect, though, that this is part of a philosophy that values movement and burst healing over standing still and pushing the same buttons over and over, which is the current state of healing.

Take, for example, Evangelism and Archangel in the Disc tree. (Monofocused, I know.) Evangelism is going to be useful to healers primarily through its stacks powering Archangel; nobody's really going to care about the increased damage. And since the stacks last 15 seconds, you only need to weave a Smite in once every ten GCDs to keep the stack going. Once you've got that down, you can spend most of your time healing as normal, but burn Archangel when you need to to give yourself 15% of your mana back and 18 seconds of +15% healing and Penance cast on the run.

(Also, Evangelism will be great for the much-requested Holy/Disc DPS spec. ;)

I don't really see anything that says you have to do damage to heal. It mostly reads as ways to make healing more interesting for some people. It seems more situational like a "if you have to use a damaging spell we'll give you this bonus" type deal. Keep in mind Blizzard wants to make healing more involved and active/thoughtful and mana regen is being severely altered with more information to come soon on that.

Lodur: Have you tried getting down into the Disc tree without sticking points in smite does more damage or pvp talents? You cannot get around it as it stands.

Also, healing more involved...healing, not doing damage.

Oh, and if I recall correctly, you're a shaman..have you seen your dps talent? 75% mana cost reduction. Do you really think there will be other means of mana management to make up for not "chosing" that talent?

The other problem I'm having is that they keep adding more spells to the mix. Not only are priests getting a mass of new spells already, now they have another 3 or 4 buttons to press through talents. I know they want to make it about choices, but the fact that I cannot get around using smite talents in disc tree doesn't feel like a choice.

Oh, on top of that, I cannot get to penance and surge of light, the second one being the staple talent if you would want your smites just to build up for heals. The priest stuff needs some work still.

I was talking to Thror and he could actually see it happen that you bring 10 healers. One half is dpsing to get their talents to work for them, while the other half is healing and switching it off like that...still seems like a bad idea somehow.

As a druid, I'm very concerned about this. The whole reason for taking away our tree seems to be to 'let' us do damage as well as show off the oh-so-epic shoulders Blizzard gives us... and then our treeform cooldown has boosts to damage spells? Yeah. Um...

Heling is what I like best in WoW. Don't take it away just because some developers like doing damage too much.

Oh, I'm sure that this has nothing to do with what developers like. I think they all just came together in one big room and discussed how to make healing more fun.

And I really believe that they want to do things for the healing community. Thinking all this up would've taken a lot of developer thinking time, and with all that Cataclysm is bringing I doubt that time is lightly spent.

But I also think that if they do want to fiddle with healing does damage to heal better philosophy they should at least keep a couple of pure healing classes so that the pure healers can hide there while they discover how they want to make it work.

Why can you not think of these talents as giving you more healing options, with the added bonus of doing damage, rather than "taking away my heals?" A quick look at the priest Atonement mechanic would tell you that a smart heal that (I assume from the tooltip) rangefinds from the boss rather than the priest (thus giving more flexibility to the priest on high-movement fights) is highly useful and will make priest healing more interesting. Archangel is a bonus CD on top of that.

No, you cannot get Penance and Surge of Light at the same time, but you can get to Archangel and Guardian Spirit. Borrowed Time can give Disc fast Smites, which compensates for not having Surge of Light. It appears to be more balanced than you think.

You also seem to think that you'll be spamming the damage spells, and healing will just happen. Wha? There is NOTHING in these talents that promotes that.

"But then we won't use them enough to justify all the points we spent in them!", I hear you cry. Firstly, you should not be using ANY spell or talent enough that it makes the other spells/talents you have obsolete. This is a point that GC has emphasised again and again. They want you to use different tools in different situations. If you are spamming only a couple of abilities, either the whole concept failed or (more likely) you're doing it wrong.Secondly, you're moaning about all these extra buttons you'll have to hit, as if you'll be expected to do everything at once. What exactly do you think would be in those talent slots if these 'damage-to-heal' talents were not there? The smart money would say, more heals. More buttons to press. They are trying to make them more interesting than "Atonement: Heals a low-health friend or ally within 40 yards of your target for xxx". Deal with it.

You also seem to be forgetting that with the design philosophy that GC has been expounding, healers will have more time to decide what to do next, rather than frantically spamming something every GCD. That implies that you will, on occasion, not need to immediately heal someone (because they are not in much danger of dying anytime soon) and so can take the opportunity to help the raid by doing some damage at the same time as your next heal. Think about it. Mana management will supposedly be a real issue again in Cataclysm. These damage-to-heal abilities will end up being more mana efficient in many cases, since more damage to the boss = shorter fight length.

And as for druids! My gods, they get a free (in every respect except GCD) Wrath every so often! We'll never ask druids to heal again! The IToL damage bonus is a bit puzzling, but since we don't know what the ToL bonus effects will be we can't really judge it yet. It could be that some of the heals in ToL form do damage as well. It could be as lame as just increasing the Fury of Stormrage free Wraths. There is, however, no "taking away" of healing capability.

Bottom line is: there is no way, by any stretch of the imagination, that healing will be lessened or taken over by 'damage-to-heal' mechanics. Taking the time to actually think through the implications of the changes would be much more helpful to the general community than knee-jerk overreactions. Stop it.

Also, do you really feel you can stick a new player on a priest any longer and feel that they would understand how to get the best out of their character? I don't. I would NEVER recommend a new player to start off with a priest the way the class has been developing for a while.

Which..is fine. But not all healing classes should scream, don't play me as a beginning player.

And over reacting? Your reaction is more hostile than my post or my comment was. Plus, you fill in my thoughts and ways of thinking. Things I've never expressed.

But it's ok, everybody is entitled to their opinion. I'm glad that you're completely convinced that they get it right the first time around.

I for myself believe that looking critically at stuff that is shown now will actually help them to do it better. :)

You can get around the talents. Put 3 into Unbreakable Will, take Focused Power (for faster Mass Dispel), and 3 in Penitence (for 15% crit to Penance). Then continue as normal. You will not be forced to take Evangelism, Archangel, or Atonement.

The spec could be stronger if there was a talent that just "felt" useful as an alternative for those couple points. Unbreakable Will isn't bad, but it does feel a little less productive than other talents. Either way, just know that these new talents are *not* required. There will be plenty to do as Discipline with access to stronger, faster heals that go beyond the watered-down shielding that so many have become accustomed to. You are going to be more powerful and many of the tools that you currently overlook will be viable again.

As for priests being complicated...I personally love it. We have a great deal of versatility if we take the time to learn our abilities and our limits. It's a shame to any class if a new player can sit down and be an expert right away. Why devote so much time to our individual specs if we don't enjoy learning their quirks?

Remember that you're proud of all your hard work and the studying and practice you put into learning how to be your best!